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Over at Distributed Republic, Micha Gertner asks:

Serious questions must be answered and major obstacles overcome before even I can convince myself that this is a worthwhile idea. Why did Agorism seem to die down (and never really catch on) during the late 70s and early 80s? Was it just too much of a personality cult centered around Konkin, without enough second-hand dealers in ideas to carry the torch any further? Did Konkin and his fellow travelers piss off the other major libertarian camps or funders? Was the lack of movement success of Agorism over the last few decades intrinsic to the ideology itself or a result of personality clashes betweem Konkin and others? Or something else entirely?

Agorist experts–both critics and advocates–please weigh in.

Let me turn this into a list. Most of what I have to say will be mere speculation as I have little or no firsthand knowledge of it beyond any published materials I might mention. Others with more, better or other information should comment below.

1. Why did Agorism seem to die down (and never really catch on) during the late 70s and early 80s?
2. Was it [agorism] just too much of a personality cult centered around Konkin, without enough second-hand dealers in ideas to carry the torch any further?
3. Did Konkin and his fellow travelers piss off the other major libertarian camps or funders?
4. Was the lack of movement success of Agorism over the last few decades intrinsic to the ideology itself or a result of personality clashes betweem Konkin and others? Or something else entirely?

Answers and [later] links to answers will be posted below.

Why did Agorism seem to die down (and never really catch on) during the late 70s and early 80s?

First, I suspect there was a great deal of misunderstanding then (as there is now) of the role of a Phase One MLL (read New Libertarian Manifesto) which never got adequately clarified for potential recruits. Specifically, some take the strategic reliance on counter-economics to mean the agorist conception of “activism” would be solely to run right out and start your own heroin ring or some such. Presumably some tried and succeeded, some tried and failed and perhaps most never dared to try. While I certainly don’t want to discourage that, it rather misses the point that the counter-economy itself is always with us and that there is an unfilled role for activism in the sense of advocacy through education and direct action.

Additionally, my opinion is that there is a tremendous psychological hurdle between libertarian reformism and gradualist hopes for abolition via political means on the one hand and, on the other, a genuinely revolutionary mindset in an anarchist sense. Some may not dare advocate counter-economic activity, despite the libertarian non-aggression principle. Others may feel that political change has to be tried first. Of those who are prepared to abandon political change, many are (unfortunately) overly eager for a violent insurrectionist approach. The agorist approach, in contrast, is best understood as paralleling the Marxist approach of a dedicated intellectual cadre setting about to change public attitudes — over a long period of time, if necessary, but the sooner the better as a matter of course. Instead of bringing the revolutionary vanguard to political power, as Leninists would do, the Revolutionary Agorist Cadre would seek to simply make the public ungovernable. Primarily, this is to be accomplished by smashing superstitions that underpin voluntary obedience to the state.

I’ll have more to say later.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 2:47 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.